Being a single parent
Aug 8, 2016 18:58:29 GMT
Post by Deleted on Aug 8, 2016 18:58:29 GMT
Temporarily I am a single father...
Due to the complexities of school end of year dates, GCSEs, youth group camps in Wales, a youth group overseas tour to Israel (followed by relevant child wanting a further week there with his mates) and me and the missus wanting some sun, my wife and I will manage to spend just two days together in 20. I will have spent 18 days looking after one or both of my sons aged 16 & 18. They are very capable but one is working in my office and other is working with PWC for a week. So they have to be got up in the morning (not easy with my 18yo who has some social skill issues), fed, watered, lunch made, clothes washed, dinner made etc etc. And I have my work.
It's tiring, very tiring, thinking about everything that needs to be done and then doing it and then wanting to have some down time for myself. I have done it voluntarily and willingly for the sake of my boys and to give my wife, who is a 80% full time mum, a nice break with her mother and to see her 'girlfriends' who live over there. But, when I think about the single mothers who manage to hold down a job and bring up children, I am truly impressed. Not everyone is a single mother by choice. Some are widowed (like my mother-in-law when my wife was just six months old), some have to leave their husbands or partners for sound reasons of personal safety, others have been abandoned even before the child was born. If any of them manage to keep a job and bring up children to be even vaguely decent citizens then they are Amazons, who presumably sacrifice their long term health for the good of the children. I don't know how they cope.
And being a full time housewife is clearly no sinecure.
Just a thought from a very tired father looking forward to the return of his dear wife.....I need a holiday.
Due to the complexities of school end of year dates, GCSEs, youth group camps in Wales, a youth group overseas tour to Israel (followed by relevant child wanting a further week there with his mates) and me and the missus wanting some sun, my wife and I will manage to spend just two days together in 20. I will have spent 18 days looking after one or both of my sons aged 16 & 18. They are very capable but one is working in my office and other is working with PWC for a week. So they have to be got up in the morning (not easy with my 18yo who has some social skill issues), fed, watered, lunch made, clothes washed, dinner made etc etc. And I have my work.
It's tiring, very tiring, thinking about everything that needs to be done and then doing it and then wanting to have some down time for myself. I have done it voluntarily and willingly for the sake of my boys and to give my wife, who is a 80% full time mum, a nice break with her mother and to see her 'girlfriends' who live over there. But, when I think about the single mothers who manage to hold down a job and bring up children, I am truly impressed. Not everyone is a single mother by choice. Some are widowed (like my mother-in-law when my wife was just six months old), some have to leave their husbands or partners for sound reasons of personal safety, others have been abandoned even before the child was born. If any of them manage to keep a job and bring up children to be even vaguely decent citizens then they are Amazons, who presumably sacrifice their long term health for the good of the children. I don't know how they cope.
And being a full time housewife is clearly no sinecure.
Just a thought from a very tired father looking forward to the return of his dear wife.....I need a holiday.
